


Poor Men

by smol_bird



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Professors, Bad Matchmaking, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Third Person Limited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 10:46:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21135452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smol_bird/pseuds/smol_bird
Summary: What To Do When Two of Your Professors Are Hopelessly in Love With Each Other: an instruction manual by Adam Young (featuring Pepper Moonchild because someone has to be the voice of reason here).





	Poor Men

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came to me via a Tumblr prompt, and I love it. The prompt was “You've heard of: Professors already married and fucking with their students by not saying they're married. Now get ready for: Students are acutely aware that these two professors are pining for each other so hard it's painful to watch, oh god we need to get them together stat.”

Adam didn’t need English for his degree. Well, there were standard freshman writing requirements, but he was long past those, having passed them with flying colours and top marks in his class. Still, he wasn’t about to give up on a subject he enjoyed just because he wasn’t studying it officially, so if he snuck to the back of a lecture hall or two, he should be praised for his dedication, really. And Pepper should be praised for being a wonderful friend, because convincing the most famous (or perhaps the most notorious) English professor on campus to let a Physics student sit in on his classes was most certainly not an easy feat. 

Professor Fell was… something else. Oh, Adam admired him, of course – he’d never met anyone so knowledgeable about all things literature – but that didn’t mean he ignored all the weird quirks the man had about him. He dressed like he stepped out of the pages of one of his favourite eighteenth century novels, and spoke not unlike it. He kept a bookshop, somewhere in London, wasn’t married, but was madly in love. The latter two were inferred by his students in their groupchat (Pepper, the marvel, had added Adam to that too), but it didn’t require much brain power to figure out. 

Fell didn’t speak about his private life often, but if anyone managed to get him on a tangent about a man he called Anthony (with a furtive glance to the side and a quick smile), the lesson might as well have ended then and there. Because of these tangents they as a class knew way more than they needed about someone they’ve never met. They knew Anthony wore leather, and drove ninety miles per hour around Central London (“Ninety,” Pepper would mutter to herself with a contemptuous click of her tongue), and kept houseplants. 

“Imagine being in love like that,” Adam would sigh when they got out of the door. 

“Poor man,” Pepper would say. 

And that was English. 

And then there was Physics. 

Of course there was Physics – Adam wasn’t an aspiring NASA engineer for nothing. But there was Astrophysics in particular, and with Astrophysics came Professor Crowley, and Professor Crowley’s name was so notorious throughout the university that even other professors would give Adam a sympathetic smile when he asked for homework extensions on the basis of having spent a week trying to figure out the problem sets Crowley would give them. 

Don’t get him wrong – Professor Crowley was the best. He drove a Bentley and disregarded dress code rules and never made his students buy textbooks (“I don’t read,” he would scoff when asked, which they all knew must have been a lie, because one does not get this smart by not reading). Adam spent hours in his office even before he collected all the prerequisites needed for his class, listening to the man gush about space and stars and, occasionally, outlandish theological theories. Crowley adored his students – you could come to him at any hour of the day, ask for help with anything at all, and get half an hour’s worth of life advice which was, if not always helpful, then at least thoroughly entertaining. To his students – hell, to just about everybody in the university – Crowley was like a cool, slightly intimidating and scarily smart uncle.

But damn, did he work them hard.

His lectures were a barrage of facts which you were expected to understand immediately or else look up on your own and understand then. He barely wrote down notes, and when he did, he scribbled them on a blackboard in red chalk in just about the worst handwriting Adam has ever seen a professor have. He had a tendency to call people out in his class and squint at them through dark sunglasses until they answered his question (or stumbled an apology, in which case he would soften and answer the question himself). Nine lectures out of ten Crowley was terrifying. 

On the tenth lecture someone would – God knows how – get him onto the topic of love. 

“Screw Fell,” Adam would say to Pepper, who didn’t take Astrophysics but knew all about Crowley’s antics from her friend. “Imagine being in love like _Crowley_.”

Professor Crowley was in love and he never hid it, not once. He spoke about a man he called an angel – no names, god forbid – and whenever he spoke about it, his entire being would light up. He would sit on his desk, sweeping papers and pens aside, rest his feet on a chair and his elbows on his knees, and tell students about love with the warmest smile on his face. They knew his angel loved crêpes, and reading, and fencing, apparently – what a combination, Adam thought – and somehow, despite everything, he didn’t love Crowley. 

“Poor man,” Pepper would say to that, too.

The thing is, Adam was smart and Pepper was smarter. Together they’ve solved nigh impossible bonus problems and came up with philosophical theories which Pepper’s professors described as “fresh” and “astoundingly sharp”, and, on one memorable occasion, “groundbreaking”. As a duo they could accomplish just about anything. 

Apart from, apparently, figuring out the obvious. 

It finally clicked one dreary Monday morning in early November. It was one of the lectures Adam was always tempted to skip – he still wasn’t officially enrolled in the class, and a college student can never have enough extra hours of sleep – but Professor Fell’s lectures were usually worth it. Even if they weren’t, Pepper would nag him afterwards about the hardships she went through to get him a seat in the class, so he’d set his alarm for eight and stubbornly drag himself out of bed and across the campus. 

It was drizzling, that day. Adam didn’t have time to make coffee, and he had a midterm in his worst class in a couple of days. The morning was looking bleak as they come, and with the level of dramatic suitable for a college student he convinced himself that nothing will make it better, not even Professor Fell’s heated rants about the underlying flaws of Freudian interpretations of Hamlet, no matter how entertaining they were. Pepper poked him with a pen every once in a while, and he glared. 

And then, just about halfway through lecture, someone knocked.

“Come in,” Professor Fell called out, not exactly keen on being interrupted, but polite enough not to let it show.

The door swung open, and Adam perked up a bit. There, leaning against the doorway, his hair soaking wet and his sunglasses crooked, stood Professor Crowley. He was hardly as put together as Adam was used to seeing him, which was intriguing in itself, and seeing the man so far from his usual dwelling in the Physics Department only added to the curiosity. But before he could even voice his questions to Pepper – who, having been to his office a couple of times herself, recognized Crowley easily enough – the intruder spoke up. 

“Angel, I need to talk to you. Couple minutes. Outside.”

“Anthony?” Professor Fell asked, eyebrows creeping up to his hairline. “Well – of course. If you lot will excuse me, I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

And then stepped out of the door, as if he didn’t just drop a bombshell on his entire class in under three sentences. 

The door closed behind him. Everything remained deadly quiet for precisely four-and-a-half seconds after that. 

Then a voice from the third row squeaked, almost strangled – 

“Crowley?!”

– and the classroom collapsed into rightful chaos.

***

“Crowley,” Adam ranted, later, as he and Pepper sat under the roof one of the sandwich places on campus waiting for their names to be called out. “Crowley! Anthony J. Crowley, for god’s sake!”

“There’s no need to get that riled up,” Pepper said, shooting for reasonable and then crossing her arms at her chest in a huff. “Professor Crowley– It’s ridiculous!”

“Damn right it’s ridiculous,” Adam fumed. “Crowley’s been going on and on and _on _ about how his angel is not in love with him! Pepper – Pepper, tell me I’m not just making this up!”

“Well, I can’t know if Professor Crowley was going on about anything,” the girl shrugged with one shoulder. “But Professor Fell has certainly made his love for this… Anthony quite clear.”

“That’s my point!” Adam exclaimed. “They are the smartest people! They’re literally geniuses! How are they such idiots?!”

The man at the counter called out their names. Adam hopped up and got the sandwiches, because he had enough nervous agitation to waste. 

“They’re literally– they’re so stupid,” he mumbled through a mouthful of bread. “Either they’re stupid or they’re evil and want to see their students suffer. Which seems more likely to me, because – Pepper, _have you heard them talk about each other?!_”

“Yeah,” Pepper muttered, distractedly, as she took a sip of her lemonade. “That’s… I’m not sure what to say. It’s kind of hilarious. My professors are morons.”

“Poor men,” Adam said, because it’s the only thing he could think of saying.

Pepper swallowed her mouthful of lemonade and snickered. 

***

The thing is, Professor Fell’s class was a dozen people plus Adam, and only two of them were taking Astrophysics. This left Adam, Pepper, and – _ugh! _– Warlock Dowling as the only three who actually knew the full extent of this implication. All three of them valued their university places, so they weren’t exactly keen to interfere, and as such all that was really left to them was to suffer through listening to their professors gush about how in love they were with each other. For as hilarious as it was, it also sort of sucked. 

(Fell made them promise to keep it quiet, and they all respected him enough to listen. Crowley just cornered Adam and Warlock one day after class and glared at them until they assured him they’ll keep their mouths shut.)

“It sucks,” Adam said, “because they’re so in love, Pepper. Imagine being this in love and thinking you’re not loved back.”

“Can’t relate,” Pepper said. Adam rolled his eyes, because they weren’t discussing their own romantic preferences here (or lack thereof). 

“And it’s like, what can we do?” he said instead. “There’s nothing we can do, because we promised, and because Crowley is terrifying when he’s mad, and Fell is probably even more terrifying, because I’ve never seen him mad in my life. We can’t just go up to them and be like – _Yo, you know how the two of you are hopelessly head over heels for each other?_”

“Adam, I beg you, please do not do that,” Pepper said, because Pepper was reasonable. “They’re grown men. They’ll figure it out.”

“Or they’ll just continue gushing about it to their respective classes and die alone in their misery,” Adam grumbled, because he was not quite a pessimist, but it was a close call. “Ugh, I wish I could just, like, snap my fingers and make them stop being stupid. If anything, it’s harming me personally! I barely caught half the stuff Crowley was saying in the last lecture – that’s, like, ten marks off the next midterm!” 

Pepper looked up from her book and gave him an accessing glance. 

“Say,” she drawled, leaning back in her chair, “Crowley doesn’t mind students dropping by his office hours with questions, does he?”

“Of course not,” Adam shrugged. “But it’s not like I can just go up to him and be like _Hey, did you know that Fell–_”

“Adam,” Pepper interrupted, rolling her eyes. “Come on. You don’t have to mess with their love life. Just go ask him about the lecture material, is all. And if romance comes up, well…”

She tilted her head to the side. Adam thought that he’s dug this grave for himself, because she wouldn’t lay off him now until he at least tried. Half of her classes were practically on the best ways to make people do things.

“Fine,” he told her. “Fine. But if Crowley bites my head off and puts it in the Science Gallery for all to see, you’ll have to tell my parents about it.”

Pepper snorted and gave him a friendly nudge.

***

Now, Adam was exaggerating, of course. Professor Crowley would never bite a student’s head off. He’d glare instead, his freakishly yellow eyes barely visible over the rim of his glasses, until you fessed up about every mistake you’ve ever made. 

“Are you here to ask me about astrophysics or my love life, Young?” Crowley asked, voice venomously sweet. Adam squirmed in his chair.

“Astrophysics!” he sputtered. “Of course!”

And then, because Crowley’s stare could pierce right through your soul even from behind the dark lenses, and he certainly hadn’t shown any sign of believing Adam’s half-hearted excuses:

“It’s just that… well, if you were– There’s not a lot of queer faculty members, and I was sort of… looking for… romantic advice?”

Professor Crowley pushed his glasses up and leaned back in his chair.

Adam decided that (Warlock Dowling notwithstanding) his own tongue is the greatest enemy he has. 

***

“Romantic advice,” Pepper repeated. “_Romantic advice._”

“Listen, it worked!” Adam exclaimed. “Better than then having him fail me in his class because my friend is forcing me to snoop where I’m not supposed to!”

“Your friend is not forcing you to do anything,” Pepper scoffed. “On the contrary, your friend is doing what’s best for you, because you’ve been driving her mad worrying about two grown-up idiots.”

Adam took a second to briefly marvel at how casually they’ve come to refer to the pair of the smartest men both of them have ever met as idiots. 

“That was more hypothetical,” he grumbled. “I didn’t expect to actually be able to do anything about it short of locking them in a closet and forcing them to sort it out.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Pepper sighed. “We’d need a master key for that.” And then, with a sudden glint in her eyes as she took in the hunch of Adam’s shoulders and the resigned despair on his face: “But out of curiosity, did Professor Crowley asked you who exactly is the boy you supposedly like?”

Adam leveled her with a glare. Then, because she was better at glaring than he was, sighed and looked away. 

“Dowling,” he muttered under his breath, cheeks flaring up red in irritation. 

For a long moment Pepper stayed silent. 

Then she roared with laughter.

***

Next time they had a lab in Astrophysics, Crowley announced that he will be picking the pairs himself, and Adam got a sneaking suspicion he knew who he’s going to end up with. 

(For all his numerous flaws, Dowling turned out to be a surprisingly decent lab partner).

***

Another class Adam took was sort of a required elective. He maintained that science requirements outside his desired area of study were evil and should not exist, but the university didn’t quite listen to the woes of simple men, so he ended up behind a desk in the Biology Department thrice a week for an hour. It wasn’t his favourite class – in fact, if he had to rank it, it would solidly land the last spot – but there were days when he figured the professor made it sort of worth his time. 

(He got really lucky with his professors, Adam did).

Professor Zabel couldn’t give half a shit about their students and was weirdly obsessed with flies, but at least (when they weren’t talking about biology) they made their lectures entertaining. Sure, in their mind “entertaining” meant either conspiracy theories or all-too-graphic descriptions of medieval torture methods, but as long as they weren’t talking about human respiratory system, Adam was content. (Still, truth be told, he was sure that the only reason they hadn’t gotten fired yet is that because they were in the university President’s good books.)

Anyways, all of that was to say that Adam was pretty happy to procrastinate on Biology homework by coming up with increasingly ridiculous plans. 

“Or I could pretend to be sick in his class, and you can pretend to be sick in Fell’s,” he was telling Pepper. “They’re back to back, and Crowley would probably stay with me because he’s the nicest person, so if we force both him and Fell to be in the Health Centre at the same time…”

“Adam,” Pepper sighed. “Why do you think just getting them into a room together would work? It’s not like they haven’t know each other for half their lives!”

Adam groaned in frustration, flipping through textbook pages carelessly.

“Let a man dream, Pepper,” he said, staring at the labelled diagram of the lungs with utter revulsion. “Fine. New plan. Lock them in a classroom and don’t let them out for the night.”

“Again, master key,” Pepper reminded him, her fingers flying over the keyboard of her laptop. “Unless you can forge one, I doubt that’s feasible.”

“I’ll just steal one,” Adam shrugged. “Fell has a copy. He’s so oblivious he probably wouldn’t even notice.”

Pepper gave him an unimpressed look. 

“Bold of you to assume Fell won’t notice you trying to steal from him from a mile away,” she said. “Remember that time a student swiped his copy of _Macbeth _and he not only figured out who it was in under an hour, but also intimidated the poor kid into apologizing in front of the entire English Department?”

“But that’s… books,” Adam pouted. “He’s weird about books. Who’s to say he’d even care if someone stole his master key?”

And then, before Pepper could answer, someone tapped him on the shoulder – far less than polite. 

“Young, isn’t it?” Professor Zabel asked in their weird manner of buzzed consonants and perpetually tired voice. Adam bit his tongue. “Why exactly are you plotting to steal someone’s keys?”

“Uh. No,” Adam said, eloquently. “I-I mean we weren’t, sir. We were just – it’s a thought experiment, see, we’ve–”

“We were planning to lock Professor Fell and Professor Crowley in a room to get them to stop pining over each other,” Pepper said, because Pepper had no fear, but possibly had a death wish. Adam gave her a terrified glare. Zabel’s eyebrows shot up. 

“Now that,” they said, squinting, “is innovative. Can’t say we’ve tried it yet.”

They rummaged through the pocket of their jacket and then tossed Pepper a small silver key.

“Thanks, sir,” Pepper said, cheerfully, catching it in midair. “Highly appreciate it.”

Zabel smirked and walked off. 

Adam, blinking violently, decided he needs to reevaluate his entire perception of his biology professor.

***

It wasn’t even that hard. It required some planning, of course – it was a ridiculous feat, and Adam still couldn’t believe they were doing it – but in the end they didn’t so much as need to ask Warlock for help, because it turned out to be a perfect play for two. Pepper asked Professor Fell to meet her in a classroom in the History Department long past the last history class – the less chances of someone walking by, the better. Adam told Crowley that he’s terribly sorry but he can’t drop by office hours this week, he has a meeting scheduled, and _Would you mind meeting up this evening? I know a free room! _ They texted each other their confirmations and then set out to sit through the rest of their classes, forgetting just about everything which they were meant to learn. 

Classes came and went. Adam shoved his books into his bag and found the key in one of its pockets. He met Pepper twenty minutes in advance (they couldn’t risk running into either of their targets), and the two of them made their way to the History block, glancing over their shoulders like the most suspicious pair of students to ever step on the university’s grounds. The corridors in the block were narrow and full of twists, which also played to their advantage – there was a perfectly good corner to hide behind, waiting for both men to show up at the designated time. Adam promised to meet Crowley five minutes after Pepper promised to meet Fell, so they arrived one by one.

“Angel?” Adam heard Crowley say after he swung the door open. His breath caught. “Why are you here?”

“Why, hello, dear,” Professor Fell responded, his tone ever pleased. “I have to meet a student – she has an assignment draft she wants me to look over.”

“Ngk,” Crowley grunted, stepping inside, if the sound of his footsteps was any indication. “Same here. If you mind, I’ll talk to Adam outside, ‘s not a problem.”

“Oh, not at all!” Fell exclaimed. And then, after a pause: “Wait – you don’t mean Adam Young?”

“Now,” Pepper hissed in his ear. 

Adam clenched his fist tighter around the key and bolted forward. 

They chose the classroom strategically, see. Not only was it likely to be deserted after hours, but its door opened outwards, towards where he and Pepper were hiding, making it much easier to slam it shut as he dashed past it. He fumbled with the key, almost too long, but finally managed to push it into the keyhole, turning it three times for good measure. Pepper followed close behind, hair tousled and eyes glinting with excitement. She grabbed his arm and dragged him down the corridor, behind another corner or five, and only then did they let themselves stop running, leaning against the nearest wall to catch their breaths.

“We actually did it,” Pepper managed, a grin on her face getting wider each passing second. 

“Oh my God, we actually did it,” Adam echoed, running his hand through his hair. “We’re gonna get in so much trouble for this.”

“All the trouble,” Pepper agreed, pulling her hair up in a bun and pulling it loose again. “All of it.”

They stayed in silence for a few more seconds. Adam looked down at the key in his hand.

“We gotta go give this back to Zabel,” he said, even though that may possibly have been the least of their problems.

“Yeah,” Pepper said. “Lead the way.”

They both ignored the muffled swearing coming from behind them. 

***

Adam’s first class next morning was Astrophysics, and he seriously considered skiving it, if only to delay his demise. But he knew Pepper was going to go to English later (they shook on it), so he couldn’t exactly justify being a coward. As such, he dragged himself out of bed, put on the most inconspicuous items of clothing he owned, and then intentionally waited for a group of students to come up to the lecture hall doors so he could hide himself among them. None of that helped him remotely, because as soon as he stepped over the classroom porch, he was pinned down by a glare of yellow eyes. 

“Adam Young,” Professor Crowley hissed, getting up from behind his desk and approaching him. He sort of lacked his usual swagger, and although it was hardly colder than yesterday outside, he wore a proper scarf – nothing like the strange excuse for one he usually tended to sport. “I hope you realise that the only reason I am not failing you in this course is that Professor Fell asked very, _very _ nicely.”

Adam, because his brain had apparently resolved that he feared no man nor god (and if he were expelled then hey, at least it would be a story to tell the kids), tilted his head to the side and said,

“That’s way more than I need to know about your sex life, Professor.”

He didn’t know it then, but the only thing that saved him from being kicked out on the spot was that at that exact moment Warlock Dowling walked through the door; and then Crowley decided that he had better ideas.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ll probably make a part two about Aziraphale and Crowley actually figuring stuff out. No smut, because I don’t write smut, but dialogue is fun.  
Also, [my tumblr](https://why-not-go-with-style.tumblr.com/).


End file.
